Introduction

This is my obligatory “Hello, World!” post. I’ll try to keep this short and sweet.

About me

Who am I?

A complete newbie.

Seriously though, I’ve been looking for a new hobby and have been semi-interested in this for a while. To be honest, it has always seemed daunting, but better late than never.

I work in IT as a DevOps Engineer. I enjoy what I do and tend to gravitate towards hobbies that involve a screen (writing code, homelab, video games, etc…). I wanted a hobby that was quasi-related to technology, but would also get my ass out of the house.

What are my goals?

My goals are simple:

• Learn about amateur (ham) radio
• Obtain my Technician license (I live in the US and am subject to the FCC’s rule)
• Have fun and not look like an ass while doing it 🤷🏻

I’m not a prepper and there is no bunker in my basement. I’m not trying to become the guy with a 50’ mast in his backyard and I don’t want to wear a chest rig in public.

I just want to be able to legally transmit on a handheld radio for fun, or just because I can.

About this blog

I believe in learning by doing or writing. I can’t just read a book, I need to do the steps (and take notes in the margins) for my brain to commit it to memory. For me, spinning up a quick blog is a great way to help myself, but also help anyone else who happens to find this interesting.

Technical stuff

I’ve run WordPress websites for a long time, and considered it for this blog. However, I wanted something lighter (no PHP or database), and to be honest, I didn’t want to have to deal with comments. On my personal blog, I spent so much time dealing with spam, answering comments, etc… that it made writing not enjoyable.

I transitioned my personal blog to Hugo about a year ago and never looked back. It’s light, fast, written in Markdown, stored in git, etc…

For this project as well, Hugo was a perfect fit. I enjoy the fact that I can write into the ether with no expectation of having to answer to anyone.

This blog also has a RSS feed if you want to subscribe.

Conclusion

I hope you find something here interesting or useful. I don’t promise to make regular updates, or get everything right the first time. In fact, I can’t even guarantee that I’ll enjoy this long-term. I only promise to document what I do, how I do it, when I do it. Enjoy!

-HamRadioNewbie